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Sunday, February 08, 2009

Please read the following article from Sky News today, paying particular attention to the two emboldened paragraphs - I assume you will be as furiously angry as I am about the bankers continuing to take the mickey out of us British taxpayers. It's a real shame that Britain "doesn't have guillotines".....

(Quote)Controversial bank bonuses paid to staff despite an industry bail-out will be probed, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said.

The link between bonuses and excessive risk-taking with be examined during a review of management at the financial institutions, Alistair Darling said.

The Government has twice launched bank rescue packages, a £37bn recapitalisation scheme in October and a second last month, reported to be around £200bn.

The bail-outs have seen the state take big stakes in high street names like Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).

But the prospect of banks which have been propped up by the state handing hefty bonuses to executives has provoked fury.

Vince Cable, finance spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, said the City bankers "know no shame and take no blame, they are lucky the British have no guillotines in stock".

Early editions of The Sunday Telegraph reported that RBS, 68% of which is owned by the taxpayer, wanted to pay its staff nearly £1bn in bonuses this year.

Mr Darling is expected to announce full details of the inquiry Monday.

But he told The Sunday Telegraph: "Success should be rewarded. Failure should not.

"I expect the review to make recommendations about the effectiveness of risk-management by banks' boards, including how pay affects risk-taking."(End quote)

Friday, February 06, 2009

I like Jeremy "Top Gear" Clarkson, he says what he thinks about things, which is a lot more than most British people dare to do in these dire politically-correct thought-policed times - God forbid anyone offends anyone else, it might be a breach of their Human Rights! How pathetic!

I tend to agree with most of what Mr. Clarkson dares to speak out about too, with the following article from Yahoo! today standing as a prime example:

The BBC presenter also accused the Prime Minster of lying, in the comments reportedly made in Australia where he is hosting Top Gear Live, a stage version of the hit TV show.

Mr Brown lost his sight in one eye during after an accident playing rugby as a teenager.

Clarkson, speaking at a press conference in Sydney, compared Mr Brown to Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, after Mr Rudd had just addressed the country on the global financial crisis.

According to The Australian newspaper, he said: "It`s the first time I`ve ever seen a world leader admit we really are in deep s***. He genuinely looked terrified. The poor man, he`s actually seen the books.

"(In the UK) we`ve got this one-eyed Scottish idiot, he keeps telling us everything's fine and he`s saved the world and we know he`s lying, but he`s smooth at telling us."

"Most people here are proud that the Prime Minister is a Scot and believe him to be the right person to get the UK through this global economic crisis."

Gordon Banks, Labour MP for Ochil and South Perthshire, branded the comments "unforgivable".

The BBC and Downing Street declined to comment.(End quote)

So Clarkson called Brown exactly what he is, and now he's in trouble for it? Brown does only have one good eye, he is Scottish, and most importantly he is an idiot and a liar. These are true facts. Okay, so it's rather impolite to mention the single eye problem, but how can the rest of what was said by Clarkson be taken as offensive or wrong?

Brown is one of the chief architects of the financial crisis in Britain, because he was Chancellor of the Exchequer (i.e. the boss of all the money in the land) during the years that all the unchecked borrowing was allowed to take place that eventually caused the "credit crunch". But Brown, not surprisingly for a professional politician and boss, denies that he helped create the mess. So he is both an idiot and a liar. And it's fair game to label him Scottish, because he is.

Good grief, no wonder Britain is in the mess it is - the only people who have got a real clue about things are not in power. I reckon Britain has a long way to fall yet before it can ever begin to recover from this epic financial crisis, because basically the people in charge (the professional politicians, God help us!) still haven't learned the important lessons of the past. Oh dear. Emigration seems like a good option to me..... Thailand's nice this time of year!